Fast Creamy Honey Wheat Pizza Dough

Use prepackaged 'pizza yeast' with your own additions of honey & cream cheese to make a quick and flavorful whole wheat pizza dough.

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This is a teaser post, and I utterly own up to teasing you with a delicious-yet-unattainable-today pizza.  See, the sauce is made of garlic scape pesto, and you can't find fresh garlic scapes right now.  Not in the grocery store, not in the farmer's market, not off the internet.

Garlic scapes are one of those items that are only available for a brief time, and after that:  poof.  Unlike asparagus (another actually seasonal item that's nowadays available in the grocery store year-round because it's shipped from other countries during the off-season) garlic scapes are a get-them-before-they-are-gone item, else you're out of luck.  One of the reasons I enjoy eating seasonally is because I get to look forward to different foods throughout the year.

So why am I sharing this pizza while my garlic bed out in the garden looks like this?

Simply because, again unlike asparagus, you can put up garlic scapes when they are plentiful and enjoy them later.  Garlic scape pesto freezes well, and provides a lovely mild garlic flavor and gorgeous color any time you use it in a dish.  I'm partial to pizza.  

Now, I've already written (and scheduled for Spring, in anticipation of garlic scapes in our Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] farm share) a post about how to make the pesto I used in today's pizza.  Instead I'll share the recipe for dough.

Yes, yes, I know I said in my Pizza Primer that I make my dough days ahead.  I usually do.  But not always--sometimes it's Friday afternoon and I've got nothing prepared.  That's when I grab a packet of pizza crust yeast [This is not a sponsored post, I buy my own packets--with coupons, always--and Fleischmann's doesn't know I exist. I'm just sharing the name of a product that I buy, use, and love--and if it inspires you to be successful in making pizza at home I'd love to hear it in the comments below.]

The inspiration for this pizza crust came from my friend Kim, who said she often makes a honey wheat pizza on her family pizza nights.  Never having tried honey wheat dough, I decided to adjust the recipe on the pizza crust yeast packet to make my own fast honey wheat dough.  I also threw in some cream cheese in lieu of oil just because I had some sitting on the counter from my son's post-braces removal Everything Bagel after school snack.  I can't call this a fat-free dough because I used regular cream cheese, and I can't call it oil-free dough because I did put it in an oiled bowl and used oil on the parchment paper.  So Fast Creamy Honey Wheat Pizza Dough it is.

NOTE: This recipe is not gluten free as written, because I used all purpose and whole wheat flours. To adapt this recipe for a gluten free diet please substitute the gluten free flour blend of your choice, or make your own--here are some options:
http://glutenfreedoctor.com/gluten-free-flour-mix-white/
http://glutenfreedoctor.com/gluten-free-flour-mix-whole-grain/
Check labels to confirm that your other ingredients are also gluten free. Good sources for determining gluten free products can be found here:
http://knowgluten.me/2012/03/31/other-names-for-gluten/
http://glutenfreedoctor.com/gluten-free/
http://www.celiac.com/categories/Safe-Gluten%252dFree-Food-List-%7B47%7D-Unsafe-Foods-%26amp%3B-Ingredients/

For general hints, tips, and photo collages please check out my Pizza Primer post, a brain dump of all things related to making pizza in my home kitchen. For more pizza recipes, please check out my Visual Pizza Recipe Index.

Fast Creamy Honey Wheat Pizza Dough

Ingredients

• ⅔ cup (160 ml) warm water
• 1 envelope Fleischmann's Pizza Crust Yeast
• 2 Tablespoons cream cheese
• 1 ½ teaspoons honey
• ¾ teaspoon salt (I use kosher)
• 4 ounces (1 cup) whole wheat flour (I used soft white wheat)
• 4 and ¼ ounces (1 cup) unbleached all purpose flour
• olive oil for the bowl, parchment paper, and to brush on the dough

Today's Suggested Toppings:

• ¼ cup garlic scape and pistachio pesto (recipe up during garlic scape season)
• ½ cup chopped bell peppers
• ½ cup chopped mushrooms
• ½ cup chopped marinated artichoke hearts
• ¼ cup chopped red onion
• 1+½ cups shredded 4 cheese blend (including fontina)
• ¾ teaspoon Pasta Sprinkle or other Italian Seasoning blend

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.  If you've got a pizza stone, good on you!  Place it in the oven and leave it there.  If you don't, use a cookie sheet instead.  For now.  
2. Into a large bowl (I use my stand mixer) place water, yeast, cream cheese, honey and salt.  
3. Dump flours on top.  
4. Mix with the paddle until it forms a ball that sticks to the paddle as shown above.  
5. Transfer to an oiled bowl and set aside. See NOTE below.
6. Gather the topping ingredients of your choice. 
7. Stretch the dough out onto an oiled piece of parchment paper  
8. Brush with olive oil, then spread pesto across dough.  
9. Top with vegetables in a pleasing pattern.  
10. Scatter cheese over top of vegetables, then shake some Pasta Sprinkle over the cheese.  
11. Bake, on the parchment paper, for 5 to 8 minutes until the crust is set, then shimmy the crust off the parchment paper and bake directly on the stone until cheese is melted and bubbly, another 3 to 5 minutes. 
12. Cool on a rack, then slice (Amazon affiliate link to my favorite pizza slicer) and serve.

NOTE--here's how my pizza dough changed in the 30 minutes between dumping it out of the mixing bowl and getting ready to stretch it out.  If your dough doesn't fill out similar to this, something is not quite right.  I'm working behind the scenes on a troubleshooting post but feel free to email me or hit up my FB page if you're stuck and need advice.

This recipe is shared with the From the Farm Blog Hop, Clever Chicks Blog Hop, Fresh Foods Wednesday and What's Cookin' Wednesday, Tasty Tuesdays